After the Civil War, the brief growth of black social and political life was repressed under terrible new forms of white supremacy. The greatest panic was reserved for “miscegenation”—race-mixing or interracial couples. Local newspapers printed reports of miscegenation from southern Alabama to Ohio.

February of 1885, there was outrage at reports of a black minister named Susine who openly advocated for the intermarriage of the races. Rev. Susine called anti-miscegenation laws “a relic of barbarism, and a heritage of slavery.” Reaching beyond the color lines of white supremacy, people listened. These were rebels. Working-class whites moved to the black neighborhoods of Tadetown and Scruggstown near today’s Martin Luther King Jr Blvd.

In March of 1885, the entire Chattanooga police force investigated mixed race child-births. Confirmed cases brought arrests. Over 30 interracial couples were named in police investigations and Susine was seen as an accessory. Despite the tremendous constraints from white supremacy, the act of loving proved to be active resistance in Chattanooga, TN.